Spoilers TF: Revelation and Dust by DRGIII Review Thread
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How were you burned? Was the last DS9 duology not very good?
Nope. It was this very book that wasn't very good.
You cannot answer for someone else. You should apologize.
Please stop telling people what to do - Halliwell might not be able to answer for Zedferret but he's entitled to make his own interjection into the conversation.
And Halliwell was spot on. As for the DS9 duology, I knew it was a two parter and only had to wait a month. Which I did. I was expecting this to be more like the Typhon Pact, separate and individual novels based around a central theme. This wasn't a novel it was a prologue.
At first I thought Revelation and Dust would get extremely boring, because the description of the station and the people who were there seemed to take a lot of pages, but it got better and the Kira storyline was really great, so I think it was definitely above average.
Finished reading this yesterday while the beloved was freaking out watching the Manchester Derby and I was sat beside him not giving a shit. I'll type up my own thoughts before going back and reading the rest of the thread.
General impression... nice. A strangely quiet and contemplative beginning to what we've been told is a galaxy-shattering crisis in the making.
The vast majority of the story was quiet, gentle conversations, learning our way around the new station, catching up with what everybody's been up to in the meantime. And that's nice, I'm glad we had time for those kind of scenes, because I'm not sure I would have liked yet another big explosive everything-going-wrong blockbuster again so soon. It was nice to just be able to take it slow and spend some quality time with these people.
I did find it strange that I was almost two-thirds the way through the book before anything resembling an actual plot kicked in. And there really only was that one tiny sliver of plot in the whole book - the assassination. Everything else was reactions and conversations and introspection. But I'm okay with that, in fact I enjoyed it as a nice change of pace. We don't always have to be dashing from crisis to drama to crisis all the time.
Ro and Quark - I just adore where their relationship is now. They're there for each other, providing emotional support without making any emotional demands on each other. This book showed the sweetest side to Quark, when he comes to her with no ulterior motive than to offer her a shoulder to cry on and bring her favourite biscuits.
DRG3 sure does love his Alonis, doesn't he? They're obviously one of his 'pet' races that he shoves in wherever he can.
Being head of an entire hospital seems like the perfect move for Bashir - allowing him to stay where he wants and do what he loves while still giving him new challenges so he doesn't get bored like before. Sensible move.
The Kira storyline... hmmm. It went on and it went on and it went on, and to be frank I didn't really see the point. We start by replaying scenes we've already seen, go into a roleplay vision in the tradition of "Far Beyond the Stars," "Horn and Ivory" and Warpath, take a long and winding road to basically lead us back to more scenes we've already seen. What was the point?
It took me till about page 300 to even get that at least the tunnel portion of the story was a metaphor for rebuilding the wormhole. But what the hell was the rest of it? Were the other ancient Bajoran characters supposed to transpose onto our familiar DS9 characters in some way? If so I didn't see it. If it was supposed to get us to where Kira can explain to Sisko about "the path of sorrow", well that didn't seem to be a question that needed answering because I understood it fine at the end of Raise the Dawn. So I'm afraid it just came across to me as meandering and pointless.
At least until Altek Dans popped out at the end, who I hadn't even thought was a real person up to that point, just a character in a vision.
Which brings us to Taran'atar. I've missed having him around, certainly. I think this is the first book that has explicitly said he was dead. Up to now it had been left ambiguous - he might have been dead, or he might have been just 'out there' somewhere. I'd been leaning pretty heavily to the latter - exiled but alive - so it threw me a touch when they said he was dead. But obviously they decided to nail it down once and for all to set us up for the final twist.
How can it be Taran'atar if they thought he was dead? Well, I have my theories. I reckon that while Altek was thrown out into the Alpha Quadrant, Kira was thrown out into the Gamma Quadrant at the same time. She describes landing in a cargo bay. Whose? I think it's the Even Odds, and Taran'atar is one of their crew. They must have saved him at the last second somehow.
I found it slightly strange that a Bajoran councillor who has only been on the council for ten minutes would get put up as Pres pro tem, especially after what had just happened, but I also get the feeling that that's going to be something that will come into play in later books.
So my final score would be above average but not mind-blowing.
Heading back to read the rest of the thread now.
.
General impression... nice. A strangely quiet and contemplative beginning to what we've been told is a galaxy-shattering crisis in the making.
The vast majority of the story was quiet, gentle conversations, learning our way around the new station, catching up with what everybody's been up to in the meantime. And that's nice, I'm glad we had time for those kind of scenes, because I'm not sure I would have liked yet another big explosive everything-going-wrong blockbuster again so soon. It was nice to just be able to take it slow and spend some quality time with these people.
I did find it strange that I was almost two-thirds the way through the book before anything resembling an actual plot kicked in. And there really only was that one tiny sliver of plot in the whole book - the assassination. Everything else was reactions and conversations and introspection. But I'm okay with that, in fact I enjoyed it as a nice change of pace. We don't always have to be dashing from crisis to drama to crisis all the time.
Ro and Quark - I just adore where their relationship is now. They're there for each other, providing emotional support without making any emotional demands on each other. This book showed the sweetest side to Quark, when he comes to her with no ulterior motive than to offer her a shoulder to cry on and bring her favourite biscuits.
DRG3 sure does love his Alonis, doesn't he? They're obviously one of his 'pet' races that he shoves in wherever he can.
Being head of an entire hospital seems like the perfect move for Bashir - allowing him to stay where he wants and do what he loves while still giving him new challenges so he doesn't get bored like before. Sensible move.
The Kira storyline... hmmm. It went on and it went on and it went on, and to be frank I didn't really see the point. We start by replaying scenes we've already seen, go into a roleplay vision in the tradition of "Far Beyond the Stars," "Horn and Ivory" and Warpath, take a long and winding road to basically lead us back to more scenes we've already seen. What was the point?
It took me till about page 300 to even get that at least the tunnel portion of the story was a metaphor for rebuilding the wormhole. But what the hell was the rest of it? Were the other ancient Bajoran characters supposed to transpose onto our familiar DS9 characters in some way? If so I didn't see it. If it was supposed to get us to where Kira can explain to Sisko about "the path of sorrow", well that didn't seem to be a question that needed answering because I understood it fine at the end of Raise the Dawn. So I'm afraid it just came across to me as meandering and pointless.
At least until Altek Dans popped out at the end, who I hadn't even thought was a real person up to that point, just a character in a vision.
Which brings us to Taran'atar. I've missed having him around, certainly. I think this is the first book that has explicitly said he was dead. Up to now it had been left ambiguous - he might have been dead, or he might have been just 'out there' somewhere. I'd been leaning pretty heavily to the latter - exiled but alive - so it threw me a touch when they said he was dead. But obviously they decided to nail it down once and for all to set us up for the final twist.
How can it be Taran'atar if they thought he was dead? Well, I have my theories. I reckon that while Altek was thrown out into the Alpha Quadrant, Kira was thrown out into the Gamma Quadrant at the same time. She describes landing in a cargo bay. Whose? I think it's the Even Odds, and Taran'atar is one of their crew. They must have saved him at the last second somehow.
I found it slightly strange that a Bajoran councillor who has only been on the council for ten minutes would get put up as Pres pro tem, especially after what had just happened, but I also get the feeling that that's going to be something that will come into play in later books.
So my final score would be above average but not mind-blowing.
Heading back to read the rest of the thread now.
.
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In my own parlance, this is more like Season 15.
Season 10 is the Ascendant business, 11 is Rebecca's kidnap, 12 is AotF/Destiny, 13 is ASD/RBoE, and 14 is ZSG/PoN/RtD. So this is 15.
Not really, no. Other than the bit about rebuilding the wormhole as I said above, I didn't really get much from it. So please, do explain, because I genuinely want to know. Not being sarcastic.
I kind of get what they're saying, though. The characters is this book have shown growth when you compare this entire book to previous entire books, but I don't know that many of them can be said to have grown within this book. I like where they are now, as I said above, but I don't know that any of them were different at the end of this book from how they were at the beginning. If I'm missing stuff, please tell me, preferably non-condescendingly.
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I finally finished the book myself. [And I'm finally caught up to current!]
I didn't think it was terrible, but I found it very similar to a lot of DRG's last couple of novels. Twilight is one of my favorite DS9 relaunch books, but almost everything since has been in a style that just doesn't mesh well with me. He seems to like to write a lot about characters standing and thinking, or reflecting on events, rather than actually showing the events unfolding and living in the moment. It ends up feeling like a series of meetings.
That said, I actually think Revelation and Dust had somewhat less of that than the previous three books. It did have movement in places. Overall I'd say it is a good start, but how good it is longterm will depend on the following books.
How the Keev storyline will tie in to the rest of the books makes me the most skeptical. Now that we have information about the rest of the novels in the series, I'm not really sure where they would feasibly conclude that arch in. And how it would tie into the greater plot going in with the federation.
I really hope it is! I was curious if their super strange 'holodeck' room might tie into things. Or it could be that Kira has been booted into the past.
I didn't think it was terrible, but I found it very similar to a lot of DRG's last couple of novels. Twilight is one of my favorite DS9 relaunch books, but almost everything since has been in a style that just doesn't mesh well with me. He seems to like to write a lot about characters standing and thinking, or reflecting on events, rather than actually showing the events unfolding and living in the moment. It ends up feeling like a series of meetings.
That said, I actually think Revelation and Dust had somewhat less of that than the previous three books. It did have movement in places. Overall I'd say it is a good start, but how good it is longterm will depend on the following books.
How the Keev storyline will tie in to the rest of the books makes me the most skeptical. Now that we have information about the rest of the novels in the series, I'm not really sure where they would feasibly conclude that arch in. And how it would tie into the greater plot going in with the federation.
I really hope it is! I was curious if their super strange 'holodeck' room might tie into things. Or it could be that Kira has been booted into the past.
I presume the Kira story is for future Deep Spave Nine stories, rather than the Fall. So some other author will maybe take over that plot. Arguably the book felt like a new relaunch pilot or twilight, setting up the status quo heading forward; one just hopes the editors ensure future authors keep up their and drgIII's ideas going forward
This was a good setup for the series. Not quite as good as his last duology but not bad. I really liked getting to "see" the new station. And its always nice to finally get some more DS9.
I wasn't terribly surprised that they killed off Bacco - I thought she was going to die in the David Mack TNG series, really. Still sad though, I really liked her character.
First chapters are always hard to judge because there are lots of unresolved threads. The payoff is often much more satisfying.
I wasn't terribly surprised that they killed off Bacco - I thought she was going to die in the David Mack TNG series, really. Still sad though, I really liked her character.
First chapters are always hard to judge because there are lots of unresolved threads. The payoff is often much more satisfying.
DorkBoy [TM];8693332 said:This was a good setup for the series. Not quite as good as his last duology but not bad. I really liked getting to "see" the new station. And its always nice to finally get some more DS9.
I wasn't terribly surprised that they killed off Bacco - I thought she was going to die in the David Mack TNG series, really. Still sad though, I really liked her character.
First chapters are always hard to judge because there are lots of unresolved threads. The payoff is often much more satisfying.
Be careful. There's a disgruntled poster who's on the lookout for posts like yours. He might come after you.
--Sran
DorkBoy [TM];8693332 said:This was a good setup for the series. Not quite as good as his last duology but not bad. I really liked getting to "see" the new station. And its always nice to finally get some more DS9.
I wasn't terribly surprised that they killed off Bacco - I thought she was going to die in the David Mack TNG series, really. Still sad though, I really liked her character.
First chapters are always hard to judge because there are lots of unresolved threads. The payoff is often much more satisfying.
Be careful. There's a disgruntled poster who's on the lookout for posts like yours. He might come after you.
--Sran
That was unnecessary. DorkBoy's post is fine and you know it. Comments like this again will be treated as trolling.
DorkBoy [TM];8693332 said:
With the previous DS9 duology, the first book was blasted big time by a number of people as not being true to Sisko's character. Then the 2nd book came out and all was well again in the land of DS9. I'm seeing similar things going on here. Revelation and Dust did get blasted by a number of people and I'm hoping they eat their words by the time The Fall is complete (all the books released).
I don't think anyone has blasted this book for the characters being out of character. They blasted this book for it being incomplete. That will never change, no matter how many other books are published after it.
I'm sorry. But how I judge a book doesn't work like that, and I don't think it works for many others either. So far I've read both DRGIII's book, and Una's book. While some of the plot threads established in his book is a setup for hers, the fact that her book, IMO, is better written and a higher quality, doesn't change the fact that I think Revelation and Dust is a terrible read. And that won't change after reading all 5 of The Fall novels.
It's been explained, that while the books are under the umbrella title of "The Fall", the stories themselves are their own, separate story. DRGIII is a decent author. But even the greats can write a lemon every now and then.
Me personally, I blame the editor. And I'd bet real money that the editor on this book was a different one that did Typhon Pact: Raise The Dawn. I'm sorry, while it may not be a big deal in the overall story of the book, I find such a glaring mistake of Sisko being on one ship in the last book, and then having him on another totally different ship in the same exact, situation, is either blamed on the writer for writing it, or the editor for letting it go unnoticed in the editing process. That's a sign there was a lack of care in putting it together. And if you don't care about the small things you may not care about the big things either. Since the mistake was in the first couple of paragraphs of the prologue, I had a clue ahead of time that it was going to not to be to my liking, but still wanted to give it a shot.
If I was alone in my overall opinion of the book, that's one thing and I'm just an ass for making a big deal about it. But too many others feel as I do. This novel was a missed opportunity to be a great book.
I'm of the wait and see camp. I know we have the mistake with the ship and that never should have happened. I might go back and edit in the correct ship for the eBook.
But I'm waiting to see how Revelation and Dust is flushed out when all of the Fall is out. I know it kind of ended on a cliffhanger and that wasn't supposed to be given the description. But as we well know from the past, descriptions don't always coincide with the book all that well all of the time.
But I'm waiting to see how Revelation and Dust is flushed out when all of the Fall is out. I know it kind of ended on a cliffhanger and that wasn't supposed to be given the description. But as we well know from the past, descriptions don't always coincide with the book all that well all of the time.
